this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2025
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Do you encrypt your drives and why or why not? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 day ago by monovergent@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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I was recently intrigued to learn that only half of the respondents to a survey said that they used disk encryption. Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows have been increasingly using encryption by default. On the other hand, while most Linux installers I've encountered include the option to encrypt, it is not selected by default.

Whether it's a test bench, beater laptop, NAS, or daily driver, I encrypt for peace of mind. Whatever I end up doing on my machines, I can be pretty confident my data won't end up in the wrong hands if the drive is stolen or lost and can be erased by simply overwriting the LUKS header. Recovering from an unbootable state or copying files out from an encrypted boot drive only takes a couple more commands compared to an unencrypted setup.

But that's just me and I'm curious to hear what other reasons to encrypt or not to encrypt are out there.

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[–] communism@lemmy.ml 4 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I don't want to say where I live for anonymity reasons, but I will note that it's fairly standard for political dissidents to be raided by any government so it doesn't actually particularly narrow down my location.

What's the wrench technique?

[–] netvor@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)
[–] communism@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 hours ago

Ah lol sure. It depends on what level of state repression you're looking at. Regular cops will just not bother trying to decrypt a drive if they don't have the password and you don't freely give it up (you have the right to refuse to provide a password here, it's under the same kind of principle as having the right to not incriminate yourself), but I'm sure military intelligence etc will go to the wrench technique. Also deniable encryption for anything particularly sensitive is good for the old wrench technique.